Bohemian Rhapsody
by LuxAve
Summary: Anyway the wind blows, nothing really matters to me. He just needs to breathe. To get a way for a while, not worry about others and commitments. To find something he's looking for, but doesn't know what it is. (TW: very minor allusions to suicidal thinking - so minor, you may not notice it.)
**I want to apologize, if you read my two other stories, for not updating those sooner. I swear I'm working on them. Literally, one sentence a day. My life has just been so unbelievably fucking stressful right now, and I'm being kicked out of my house so I'm not sure when another update id going to happen, but I'm sorry for not updating! I hate it when I read a story and I like it, but then it never gets updated.**

 **Yeah, this is a song fic.**

 **(-)**

 _ **Bohemian Rhapsody**_

 **(-)**

 _Is this the real life? Is this just fantasy?_

 _Caught in a landslide, no escape from reality._

 _Open your eyes, look up to the sky and see._

The night sky was draped in a duvet of clouds, covering the light from the moon and stars from view; the mass of condensed water vapor promising to make good on the weather man's storm predictions. The faint rumble of thunder still miles out of the San Fransokyo city limits just added to the prospect of rain.

Seventeen-year-old Hiro Hamada walked down the empty sidewalk, his hands shoved deep into his pockets, his hood pulled up over the top of his face. He was completely ignoring the chilly wind whipping around him as it started to pick up from a slight breeze. He was too invested in his thoughts to pay attention to anything going on around him.

The longer he walked into the night, the more raindrops he felt, the more thoughts entered his mind.

And the less he cared.

 _I'm just a poor boy, I need no sympathy_

 _Because I'm easy come, easy go, a little high, little low_

For about a year, Hiro thought he's climbed out of his depression hole, had found a shovel and dug his way back to the top and felt the sunshine. He had been in such a dark, almost lightless place after his brother died, Hiro was sure he'd never get back to a fraction of his old self.

But then his newfound friends came along with their leading lights and helped him return to who he was – for the most part. Three's only so much of your old self you can be when you lose your sibling, your best friend, your supposed-to-be life long partner in crime.

He hated the looks he got after his brother's funeral, the pity stares, and the faux sadness for _Hiro_ in their eyes. He hated it. For a long while after they lowered his brother, people kept asking how he was doing, how he was holding up; he could plainly see they never really meant those questions, just following a custom courtesy that seemed to be an unspoken rule with the passing of _anyone._

 _Anyway the wind blows, nothing really matters to me._

Hiro had tried; and for a few years, had managed to fool himself into believing things were bright again, and lights were shown in all the dark corners of his life and made the shadows disappear. He started going to school, occupying his mind on his classes that were more challenging than Hiro had believed them were.

Until one day when a professor had made a comment to Hiro about his brother, and Hiro went home thinking about his late brother; how their lives had been when his brother was still alive, still around; who he had helped Hiro become, what the older brother had taught his younger sibling.

Then Hiro started remembering how he was just after the fire, when his life fell to pieces.

He refused to leave his room for the rest of that week and the façade he had carefully constructed over the few years, shattered.

And he felt the pieces were too small this time for him to haphazardly glue back together.

 _Mama, just killed a man, put a gun against his head_

 _Pulled the trigger now he's dead_

So he just left.

He needed to get away for a little while; figure things out for himself, find out if he was just doing all of this because his brother had been doing those things, because his brother had wanted him to go to college, because his brother had gotten Hiro into wheat he was into now and he didn't want to let his brother down and make him believe that Hiro was only doing those things because he felt that's what his older brother wanted him to do.

Hiro made sure to be extra nice to his aunt after he decided to leave, he was even the one to make dinner that night, had offered to work in the café earlier in the day – something she usually had to repeatedly 'ask' Hiro to do. He even tidied up around the house.

While he waited for her to go to bed, he wrote her a note; a note that was more like the length of _The Great Gatsby_ , and explained everything. But he made extra care to emphasize that he would be okay, that he'd be back.

He just needed to go away.

 _Mama, life had just begun_

 _But now I've gone and thrown it all away_

He dropped out of SFIT, didn't tell his friends, didn't tell his aunt. He just walked away from the last success his older brother had before he was cruelly ripped away from the loving hands of his family – getting Hiro into college. It had taken Hiro months to accept _their_ acceptance of him enrolling, and now, he was leaving it.

Hiro had walked into the office of his academic advisor and told her he couldn't do this that he was dropping out. He ignored whatever she was saying in hopes that she'd change his mind. He just shook his head and asked if he had to sign anything on a form somewhere.

He waited until his friends went home for the break before he cleaned all of his, and some of his brother's things out of his lab; leaving his friends to discover the spotless room after spring break.

Then he walked out of SFIT.

 _Didn't mean to make you cry_

 _If I'm not back again this time tomorrow_

 _Carry on, carry on, as if nothing really matters._

By the tie his aunt had woken up that next morning, Hiro was long gone. She had made breakfast and took it up to his room to wake him up, only to discover his abnormally clean living space and a note book on his pillow with her name boldly written in permanent marker so she'd see it; a notebook that was almost fully taken up by the note he wrote her explaining everything in hope that she wouldn't freak out.

She didn't know how to read into the forty-page vindication of his actions. It read as a 'goodbye', but it sounded like 'suicide', but felt like 'see you later'.

She read it, then reread it multiple times before she could get up from his bed, tears in her eyes, she dialed everyone of his friends' numbers looking for him. She could understand if he needed time from something, she'd give him that, but she wanted him to talk to her. Face to face. Not pen and paper to eyes. Her nephew was hurting and she wanted nothing more than to take it away from him.

But she knew form past experiences, he wouldn't let her help. He had to pull himself up and out on his own.

 _Too late, my time had come_

 _Sends shivers down my spine,_

 _Body's aching all the time_

Hiro zipped up his hoodie higher, practically choking himself by mistake, trying to keep himself warm and dry form the chilly rain. He was starting to wish he had packed himself a heavier jacket. But he didn't think he'd need it; he wasn't planning on needing it, he wasn't aware of the artic trying to invade California.

He stopped under an overpass; the need to get out of the downpour was greater than him trying to get away from everything as fast as he could. He sat on the ground and leant against a supporting pillar, resting his head against the concrete and sighed.

This wasn't what he thought his life would be like.

When he was younger and naive, he wanted to rule the world – him and his brother were going to make the world such a great place with their crazy-but-good-intentioned inventions. Hamada Brothers Incorporated. Hamada Bros. Technology. Hamada Brothers Industries.

'Brothers' were always part of the taking-the-world-by-storm plan.

And then, in a flurry of flame and betrayal, it wasn't.

 _Goodbye, everybody, I've got to go_

 _Gotta leave you all behind and face the truth_

He couldn't stop thinking about the 'brothers' part; how it was gone now, never to be again. The longer he stayed there in that house; he was being reminded of the 'brothers'. Memories from long ago – old enough to be in a bound book and covered with dust on a shelf in the hallway – would always follow him wherever he went in that house.

Childhood inventions and plans they created when their imagination had no limitations and no end were drawn out in the living room on a rug they still had. Old formulas they had written on a sheet of paper with a permanent marker that bled through and onto the old dinning room table were still there, faded from time and wear. Half completed prototypes his brother had saved in a box in the garage for when they wanted to revisit them again when they were older to see if they could make the little machines work.

They were all still there.

Haunting him.

Following him around there like a shadow he wishes would pull a Peter Pan stunt and fly away form him.

And it physically hurt Hiro to be reminded.

And he realized that _he_ still kept those when he so desperately needed to move on.

 _Mama Mia, Mama Mia, let me go_

 _Beelzebub has a devil put aside for me_

He didn't contact anyone – not his friends, not his aunt – to let them know he was still fine, that he still needed time, even after two months.

Two months since he left to think, to breathe, to figure out just what it was he had to figure out; he hopped from motel to motel every few handfuls of days. Never had he been so thankful to freelance in programming – he was still able to work from where ever the hell he was, whenever he had time to do it. Freelancing wasn't always the more promising and reliable paycheck, but there was always someone looking for a website to be built; and he had one hell of a portfolio to show.

And from all the motel hopping he did, he didn't leave the city.

He couldn't bring himself to do that.

San Fransokyo was a very large city; he knew where his friends hung out when they didn't have commitments, knew where his aunt would occasionally visit with friends of her's when she had a night off; he stayed away from those places.

For some reason, the thought of leaving the city where his brother was, made something burn inside Hiro's heart. IT was almost like the childish thought that his brother would be lonely and upset that Hiro left San Fransokyo and had an unknown date of return.

And that childish thought made Hiro almost weep.

 _So you think you can stone me and spit in my eye_

 _So you think you can love me and leave me to die_

Hiro started to have that dream again; that dream where he's fourteen again, standing on the steps leading up to the burning showcase building. His brother standing at the top, back to his little brother, the bottom of his green jacket burnt by flames.

Hiro was desperately trying to call his brother back to him, crying out his name over and over again; reaching a hand out to tug on the jacket out of reach – he tried to take a step up, but his lower of his body wouldn't move.

Finally his brother would turn to him, not say a word, but would give Hiro the most hurt filled look before stepping into the flames of the building. Then Hiro would stand there crying until the stairs were leading up to a pile of ashes.

 _You can't do this to me baby_

 _Just gotta get out, just gotta get right outta here_

The sky contrasted drastically with his mood – the sky was blue and cloudless while his mind was storming and grey. He walked with his hands in his pockets as he trekked his way to the cemetery his brother was in.

IT was a beautiful cemetery; the city keeping it so nice could have rivaled a park if it didn't have headstones and mausoleums lined in rows. There were flowers and trees and flowering trees planted just so along the paved footpath winding through a manicured lawn.

Hiro took his time trailing through the walkways toward his brother's eternal resting place; he didn't feel like rushing himself to get to his destination, his brother wasn't going anywhere, Hiro didn't have anything else he had to do then – he could take his time. When he finally reached his brother's headstone, he didn't say a word. He just sat down in front of the engraved memorial like he did every other time he visited. He saw no need to speak, not like his brother could hear him, much less respond to him.

Hiro rested there in the grass looking at his brother's name carved in the stone as he went through an internal monologue he wished so desperately for his older brother to hear. He wanted every single word off his chest.

And he didn't care how incoherent it would have sounded if he spoke the words aloud.

 _Nothing really matters_

 _Anyone can see_

Hiro returned home a few nights later – to his actual home, above his aunt's café. After three and a half months, he returned home.

He had kept his key and let himself in in the middle of the night as quietly as he could. He waiting in the living room for the right time to start making his aunt breakfast.

She had been overjoyed when she woke up to find her nephew sitting at the dining room table, pancakes sitting in a covered plate. They didn't speak when she sat down, she waited until after he fixed her a plate and slid it over to her, after he got himself a pancake, after they both finished eating; all the while she studied him.

The only thing she noticed was different was he looked physically depressed – his shoulders hunched and tensed, his eyebrows seemed to have knit themselves together, and a permanent frown etched to his mouth. She felt like she was looking into a time capsule to when Hiro was fourteen, after his brother died; she was looking at an older version of that broken teenager.

The only sound she produced was a small, almost inaudible sigh that Hiro didn't even hear, or at least acknowledge.

 _Nothing really matters to me_

Hiro didn't say much about where he had gone, he basically just reiterated the note he left her before he up and disappeared those few months ago; he needed a breath.

And almost four months time, he still couldn't breathe right; it was a little easier now, now that he was able to get away and think for a beat in time. He was able to come to a few conclusions about himself, and a few solutions to problems he created for himself.

 _Anyway the wind blows_

'Brothers' was still going to be part of the equation.

 **(-)**

 **Sometimes, I wish I can just walk away from everything and figure things out.**

 **I started writing this a 5:30 this morning. It is now 2:40 in the after noon. I didn't think I was going to finish this today, so I started the first draft on actual paper (using a pen and everything, such a retro way of doing it) but I needed up working on this non stop. Four written pages, front and back, six typed pages.**


End file.
